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Uhhhhh...X1600 in iMac horribly underclocked?
- Thread starter Alexander
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It seems like mine will just keep gpoing and going with no errors.
Is there some saftey level so that you dont fry your system?
the core goes up to 540+ without any errors.
Is there some saftey level so that you dont fry your system?
the core goes up to 540+ without any errors.
Xylene said:
Exactly as other posters have said.
Also Intel DO NOT MAKE A 1.5 SOLO CHIP, this is a technically FAULTY duo that did not past the tests and so they disable one of the cores and clock it slower........ So there
It's a common practice surprisingly. So for them to do it to a GFX card is NOT surprising in the slightest...
MacRumorUser said:Exactly as other posters have said.
Also Intel DO NOT MAKE A 1.5 SOLO CHIP, this is a technically FAULTY duo that did not past the tests and so they disable one of the cores and clock it slower........ So there
It's a common practice surprisingly. So for them to do it to a GFX card is NOT surprising in the slightest...
Personally, I think that they reduced the core for temp and battery life. In XP with the core clocked to 450/450 I only get about 1 hour and 45 minutes. With the core standard, I get over 2 hours and thirty minutes.
Still, if we stay tethered and do not go crazy with the clock speeds, then we will have the ability to bring it up to where it should be
Backtothemac said:Personally, I think that they reduced the core for temp and battery life. In XP with the core clocked to 450/450 I only get about 1 hour and 45 minutes. With the core standard, I get over 2 hours and thirty minutes.
Still, if we stay tethered and do not go crazy with the clock speeds, then we will have the ability to bring it up to where it should be
Possibly, but why reduce them for the imac though?
Xylene said:
Well, in all honesty, a 'broken' Duo may be exactly what the Solo is
This is pretty much "standard operating procedure" in the semiconductor industry. You get your plants to churn out as many wafers as possible and try to hit the cost/yield sweet-spot. You then test the cores you've produced, and grade & sell appropriately.
There's no difference in design between the 2.13, the 2.0 or the 1.6 GHz Core processors. It just so happened that the silicon in the faster processors just happened to fall in a neater way, and thus can withstand higher clock speeds with proper stability.
Likewise, the Core Solo's are quite possibly those dies which had a defect in one of the units. Just rewire the FPGA (or whatever package they're using) and sell as a Solo.
During the 'ramp-up' of a new processor, a fair amount of work goes into measuring the yields of the factory -- how many cores from each wafer are likely to function at a particular speed, or with a certain feature-set operational.
CPU makers do this to make the best out of what is an inexact science. A 100% yield for a complex modern CPU is the stuff of fantasy. But instead of simply throwing out the imperfect, they're made into functional units and sold as another product line. If I remember rightly, AMD Semprons were originally those Athlon 64's whose 64bit extensions were faulty, but sold as a budget line without 64-bit capability. Gradually, as the manufacturing process (aka. the 'stepping' of the processor) was refined, Semprons became 64-bit too, and the distinguishing difference between the Sempron and the Althlon 64 was how much of the Level 2 cache was operational.
The same goes for the GPU industry. Often, GPUs with faulty pipelines are re-badged with a lower model number, have the faulty parts disabled via the ROM, and sold as a cheaper product line.
Pretty neat, really. There's absolutely no reason to view this selection process as a cut-corner or as 'cheaping out'.
The one difference today is that Intel has worked out ways to permanently disable features on the chip. In the early days, you could "fix" chips to enable features.
MacRumorUser said:
Well, I would again say heat. The iMac is just a glorified laptop that happens to sit on a desk. No like a BTX tower from Dell wehre there is massive amounts of cooling etc.
I personally don't think we will hurt the cards, At least I hope.
Oh, and you are right the core solo is a broken core duo, just like a celeron is a broken PIV
weldon said:
*grin*
I've got a Radeon 9800 Pro in my PC that started life as a non-Pro... then with a little testing and a re-flash of the board's firmware, it became a Pro with all 16 pipelines enabled. And then, it worked out that it ran perfectly stable at Radeon 9800 XT speeds. So I saved myself a fair amount of £££ there
Incidentally, it's the yield which largely decides the relative prices of processors. The slowest Core Solo costs Intel exactly the same amount of money to make as the fastest Core Duo. But a wafer of 40 or so processors is likely to have many more 'imperfect' lower-spec cores than 'pure and perfect' highly-capable cores. So it's an issue of scarcity. Rarer fast cores cost more than more common slow ones.
displaced said:*grin*
I've got a Radeon 9800 Pro in my PC that started life as a non-Pro... then with a little testing and a re-flash of the board's firmware, it became a Pro with all 16 pipelines enabled. And then, it worked out that it ran perfectly stable at Radeon 9800 XT speeds. So I saved myself a fair amount of £££ there
Incidentally, it's the yield which largely decides the relative prices of processors. The slowest Core Solo costs Intel exactly the same amount of money to make as the fastest Core Duo. But a wafer of 40 or so processors is likely to have many more 'imperfect' lower-spec cores than 'pure and perfect' highly-capable cores. So it's an issue of scarcity. Rarer fast cores cost more than more common slow ones.
The 9800 pro has 8 pipes. I did a similar thing with my pro, only I upgraded it to an xt.
Who out there has overclocked on their MBP's and what are your 3dmarks?
OC'd my 2.0 Ghz to 410/420 and everything works ok,
3dmark2006 2000ish
3dmark2005 3800ish
FEAR and Quake 4 run well, but Quake 4 runs much better
Every once in awhile when I exit a game my computer freezes. I think that this is less an overheating issue and more a ATItool issue.
OC'd my 2.0 Ghz to 410/420 and everything works ok,
3dmark2006 2000ish
3dmark2005 3800ish
FEAR and Quake 4 run well, but Quake 4 runs much better
Every once in awhile when I exit a game my computer freezes. I think that this is less an overheating issue and more a ATItool issue.
It's possible that the downclock was to make sure there were no "Rev. A" type problems with the GPU running too hot. Remember, Apple can always release a firmware update that will goose the speeds a little in the future.
It will be interesting to see if later versions of the MacBook Pro run higher clocks.
It will be interesting to see if later versions of the MacBook Pro run higher clocks.
I managed to overclock my iMac to 522/576 (would go higher but wanted to be safe) 3DMark06 score was 2240 Performance in GTA: SA has also increased and is alot smoother!
Performance in GTA: SA has also increased and is alot smoother!
Hey guys any idea if this would work on a G4 powerbook? I have a 1.67ghz G4 PB with a Radeon 9700 in it, is it possible to overclock it, and will it be safe, since this thing runs hot any way. Also where can I get the tool since of course this can't run windows
atitool won't work, as far as I know, with PPC computers. Besides, everyone here is using atitool in Windows! There is an overclocking utility for PPCs though, I don't recall the name though.
Some one once told me that if i can't afford to by a new computer then you shouldnt be overclocking... i did end up trying it but the performace boost was not worth the risk.
just a thought
just a thought
http://mapage.noos.fr/campahunta/index.htmlMacmaniac said:Hey guys any idea if this would work on a G4 powerbook? I have a 1.67ghz G4 PB with a Radeon 9700 in it, is it possible to overclock it, and will it be safe, since this thing runs hot any way. Also where can I get the tool since of course this can't run windows
Your milage may vary.
i have a question, even though i don't own a macbook pro, would over or underclocking using atitool affect battery life at all? isn't overclocking giving the card more power? could you save battery life by underclocking?
Os Xp said:
Yeah I noticed this too. However I uninstalled mac drivers and re-installed them and I could clock again. Hence I think the drivers are what's causing it... I decided not to bother in the end, I want my mac to stay alive
generik said:
Well they've been artificially limiting hardware for ages (look at dual monitors on imac g4, ibook etc...) for a long time so we shouldnt be surprised. It's apple
MacRumorUser said:Well they've been artificially limiting hardware for ages (look at dual monitors on imac g4, ibook etc...) for a long time so we shouldnt be surprised. It's apple
Underclocking mobile GPU's is apparently commonplace amongst other manufacturers also. Dell certainly do this.